Design of gravity assisted heat exchanger and its application on enhanced waste heat recuperation utilizing organic Rankine and LNG system

Abstract

Waste heat recovery involves capturing and reusing heat from a system that would typically be discarded. In industries like manufacturing and power generation, this method is gaining importance due to its potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fuel consumption. This paper discusses a novel heat exchanger system that utilizes gravity to extract heat from exhaust gas, providing an alternative solution to the difficulties encountered by the conventional heat recovery techniques. Moreover, by adding both the ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) and LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) cycle to this system, excess heat can be used more efficiently, allowing for better energy recovery. The gravity-pipe heat exchanger and two cycles are used in the combined energy recovery system to extract useful heat from a low-grade waste stream. Energy performance is measured by using heat transfer analysis, energy efficiency testing, and exergy analysis followed by a comprehensive parametric analysis. To identify the optimal operating parameters for maximizing energy recovery and minimizing energy losses including economic analysis of GPHE with conventional HE, mathematical optimization models are developed. The heat exchanger demonstrates good effectiveness, close to 52.3 %, at an optimum temperature of approximately 275 °C to 280 °C for a 35 kg/s air flow rate. The ORC cycle is most efficient with optimum operating condition when pentane's mass flow rate is 3.3 kg/s. The maximum work output is obtained at a condenser pressure of 0.21 MPa, reaching 280 kW. When using pentane, the cycle's maximum efficiency is 36.8 %. However, the system's exergy efficiency drops by 4.94 % when the pinch temperature goes up by 7 °C. The output of ORC turbine increases from 220 kW to 240 kW, and the output of LNG turbine increases from 25 kW to 40 kW, as the condenser pressure rises. From economic analysis it's attain that the designed GPHE is economically viable for waste heat recovery from dirty exhaust gas. This paper develops a theoretical model to evaluate several cycles for extracting energy from waste heat, which could reduce fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions in industries.